pypdfocrConverts a scanned PDF into an OCR'ed pdf using Tesseract-OCR and GhostscriptPyPDFOCR - Tesseract-OCR based PDF filing
=========================================
This program will help manage your scanned PDFs by doing the following:
- Take a scanned PDF file and run OCR on it (using the Tesseract OCR
software from Google), generating a searchable PDF
- Optionally, watch a folder for incoming scanned PDFs and
automatically run OCR on them
- Optionally, file the scanned PDFs into directories based on simple
keyword matching that you specify
- Evernote auto-upload and filing based on keyword search
- Email status when it files your PDF
More links:
- `Blog @
virantha.com <http://virantha.com/category/projects/pypdfocr>`__
- `Documentation @
documentup.com <http://documentup.com/virantha/pypdfocr>`__
- `Source @ github <https://www.github.com/virantha/pypdfocr>`__
- `API docs @ gitpages <http://virantha.github.com/pypdfocr/html>`__
Usage:
------
Single conversion:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
::
pypdfocr filename.pdf
--> filename_ocr.pdf will be generated
Folder monitoring:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
::
pypdfocr -w watch_directory
--> Every time a pdf file is added to `watch_directory` it will be OCR'ed
Automatic filing:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To automatically move the OCR'ed pdf to a directory based on a keyword,
use the -f option and specify a configuration file (described below):
::
pypdfocr filename.pdf -f -c config.yaml
You can also do this in folder monitoring mode:
::
pypdfocr -w watch_directory -f -c config.yaml
Configuration file for automatic PDF filing
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
The config.yaml file above is a simple folder to keyword matching text
file. It determines where your OCR'ed PDFs (and optionally, the original
scanned PDF) are placed after processing. An example is given below:
::
target_folder: "docs/filed"
default_folder: "docs/filed/manual_sort"
original_move_folder: "docs/originals"
folders:
finances:
- american express
- chase card
- internal revenue service
travel:
- boarding pass
- airlines
- expedia
- orbitz
receipts:
- receipt
The ``target_folder`` is the root of your filing cabinet. Any PDF moving
will happen in sub-directories under this directory.
The ``folders`` section defines your filing directories and the keywords
associated with them. In this example, we have three filing directories
(finances, travl, receipts), and some associated keywords for each
filing directory. For example, if your OCR'ed PDF contains the phrase
"american express" (in any upper/lower case), it will be filed into
``docs/filed/finances``
The ``default_folder`` is where the OCR'ed PDF is moved to if there is
no keyword match.
The ``original_move_folder`` is optional (you can comment it out with
``#`` in front of that line), but if specified, the original scanned PDF
is moved into this directory after OCR is done. Otherwise, if this field
is not present or commented out, your original PDF will stay where it
was found.
If there is any naming conflict during filing, the program will add an
underscore followed by a number to each filename, in order to avoid
overwriting files that may already be present.
Evernote upload:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Evernote authentication token
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
To enable Evernote support, you will need to `get a developer token for
your Evernote
account. <https://www.evernote.com/api/DeveloperToken.action>`__. You
should note that this script will never delete or modify existing notes
in your account, and limits itself to creating new Notebooks and Notes.
Once you get that token, you copy and paste it into your configuration
file as shown below
Evernote filing usage
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
To automatically upload the OCR'ed pdf to a folder based on a keyword,
use the ``-e`` option instead of the ``-f`` auto filing option.
::
pypdfocr filename.pdf -e -c config.yaml
Similarly, you can also do this in folder monitoring mode:
::
pypdfocr -w watch_directory -e -c config.yaml
Evernote filing configuration file
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
The config file shown above only needs to change slightly. The folders
section is completely unchanged, but note that ``target_folder`` is the
name of your "Notebook stack" in Evernote, and the ``default_folder``
should just be the default Evernote upload notebook name.
::
target_folder: "evernote_stack"
default_folder: "default"
original_move_folder: "docs/originals"
evernote_developer_token: "YOUR_TOKEN"
folders:
finances:
- american express
- chase card
- internal revenue service
travel:
- boarding pass
- airlines
- expedia
- orbitz
receipts:
- receipt
Auto email
~~~~~~~~~~
You can have PyPDFOCR email you everytime it converts a file and files
it. You need to first specify the following lines in the configuration
file and then use the ``-m`` option when invoking ``pypdfocr``:
::
mail_smtp_server: "smtp.gmail.com:587"
mail_smtp_login: "virantha@gmail.com"
mail_smtp_password: "PASSWORD"
mail_from_addr: "virantha@gmail.com"
mail_to_list:
- "virantha@gmail.com"
- "person2@gmail.com"
Fine-tuning Tesseract/Ghostscript
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
At the moment, the only options allowed for Tesseract and Ghostscript
are specifying their executable locations manually. Use the following in
your configuration file:
::
tesseract:
binary: "/usr/bin/tesseract"
ghostscript:
binary: "/usr/local/bin/gs"
Installation
------------
Using pip
~~~~~~~~~
PyPDFOCR is available in PyPI, so you can just run:
::
pip install pypdfocr
For those on **Windows**, because it's such a pain to get all the PIL
and PDF dependencies installed, I've gone ahead and made an executable
called
`pypdfocr.exe <https://github.com/virantha/pypdfocr/blob/master/dist/pypdfocr.exe?raw=true>`__
You still need to install Tesseract and GhostScript as detailed below in
the external dependencies list.
Manual install
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Clone the source directly from github (you need to have git installed):
::
git clone https://github.com/virantha/pypdfocr.git
Then, install the following third-party python libraries:
- PIL (Python Imaging Library) http://www.pythonware.com/products/pil/
- ReportLab (PDF generation library)
http://www.reportlab.com/software/opensource/
- Watchdog (Cross-platform fhlesystem events monitoring)
https://pypi.python.org/pypi/watchdog
- PyPDF2 (Pure python pdf library)
These can all be installed via pip:
::
pip install pil
pip install reportlab
pip install watchdog
pip install pypdf2
You will also need to install the external dependencies listed below.
External Dependencies
---------------------
PyPDFOCR relies on the following (free) programs being installed and in
the path:
- Tesseract OCR software https://code.google.com/p/tesseract-ocr/
- GhostScript http://www.ghostscript.com/
On Mac OS X, you can install these using homebrew:
::
brew install tesseract
brew install ghostscript
On Windows, please use the installers provided on their download pages.
\*\* Important \*\* Tesseract version 3.02.02 or newer required
(apparently 3.02.01-6 and possibly others do not work due to a hocr
output format change that I'm not planning to address).
Disclaimer
----------
While test coverage is at 90% right now, Sphinx docs generation is at an
early stage. The software is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT
WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
======= ======== ======
Version Date Changes
------- -------- ------
v0.5.3 12/12/13 Fix to evernote server specification
v0.5.2 12/08/13 Fix to lowercase keywords
v0.5.1 11/02/13 Fixed a bunch of windows critical path handling issues
v0.5.0 10/30/13 Email status added, 90% test coverage
v0.4.1 10/28/13 Made HOCR parsing more robust
v0.4.0 10/28/13 Added early Evernote upload support
v0.3.1 10/24/13 Path fix on windows
v0.3.0 10/23/13 Added filing of converted pdfs using a configuration file to specify target directories based on keyword matches in the pdf text
v0.2.2 10/22/13 Added a console script to put the pypdfocr script into your bin
v0.2.1 10/22/13 Fix to initial packaging problem.
v0.2.0 10/21/13 Initial release.
======= ======== ======
Todo list
=========
- Run more robustness tests for watching networked shares
- Add more docstrings
- Add more option specifiers to tesseract and ghostscriptVirantha N. Ekanayake23964ca5daac2e0f39e0b4957898a00e6b50cf810.5.3